Page 124 of Miss Prim and the Duke of Wylde
Drago hung his head for a second, then he raised it and stared at the dead man. After a moment, he lifted his gaze to George and Harry, crouched, equally stunned and disbelieving, on Thomas’s other side. Drago shook his head. “We never knew him, did we?”
“No.” George moistened his lips. “That was awful.”
Harry pushed upright, his horrified gaze still locked on Thomas’s body. “He was…not who we thought he was.”
Drago rose, and George slowly got to his feet.
Meg held tightly to Drago’s hand as he turned to Tisdale and, with an utterly impassive countenance, gave orders for a gate to be fetched and the body brought up to the house.
Tisdale dipped his head. “At once, Your Grace.” He put Ridley down and handed the rope to Maurice.
Maurice took the rope, and Tisdale left, but then Maurice glanced at Drago. “If I might suggest, Your Grace, I’ll wait with the body to deter any scavengers.”
Drago felt numb inside. The only sensation anchoring him to the here and now was Meg’s hold on his hand. He looked at her, and she met his eyes, then turned to Maurice and held out her hand for Ridley’s leash. “Thank you, Maurice. Ridley can come with us.”
After winding the rope about her other hand, she looked at Drago, then squeezed his hand and simply said, “It’s over. Let’s go home.”
He nodded and, with her, turned away. The others parted, then fell in behind them as they walked with heavy tread out of the old quarry, leaving the crumpled body of Thomas Hayden lying in the dust of the quarry floor.
CHAPTER20
“Evil.” George shook his head. “There’s just no accounting for it any other way.”
They’d returned to the house, passing the group of stablemen and grooms who, led by Tisdale, were on their way to retrieve the body.
Now the company sat sprawled in the library, trying to come to terms with what had happened and, even more, with what they had learned.
Meg looked at the glum faces around her. Despite Denton, Toby, and her cousins not having been directly involved, they were all wealthy enough, privileged enough, to understand being greatly envied and resented for it.
But the company had been sunk in gloom for long enough; it was time to talk and move on. She stirred, drawing the men’s eyes. “I still can’t believe it’s over. Or if it comes to believing, that it was Thomas behind everything, even the incident with Ridley.”
Drago huffed. “I can’t quite wrap my mind about that—any of that—either.”
After a moment, Harry gruffly said, “I honestly don’t think there was anything any of us could have done. He started laying the groundwork for this when he was what? Thirteen?”
George slowly nodded. “He was rotten at the core, but his outer skin was glossy and perfect. There was no way any of us could have seen the blackness inside.”
“We couldn’t have known,” Drago agreed. “Looking back, I can’t recall that he ever gave us any indication of how he felt regarding our wealth.”
Harry and George murmured agreement.
Toby was looking from face to face, from George and Harry to Drago. “Ultimately,” Toby said, “there is no way to see what truly lies in a man’s heart.”
Meg bit her tongue. She glanced at Drago, then at the others, all of whom had put themselves out to help friends or family members weather a battle of sorts.
To her way of thinking, how a man behaved usually shone a light on what was in his heart. Perhaps Thomas had proved the exception to that rule, using his behavior to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes, even those who were usually more observant and perceptive, but the men around her? They rang true. Their behavior was genuine, a reflection of their natures. Their attitudes spoke to what lived at their core.
Drago shook his head and, into the silence that had fallen, said, “All I can think about is what a waste Thomas made of his life. He might not have been wealthy, but he had prospects.”
George huffed. “But rather than work to make the most of those, he chose a shortcut via murder.”
“Multiple murders,” Harry pointed out.
After a moment, in a different tone, Harry said, “Do you remember…”
Meg listened as the three men who had thought they’d known Thomas Hayden reminisced about long-ago larks and adventures.
It was a eulogy of sorts for a man who hadn’t really existed.
